Working Directly with the Community

Both the MAT and Agriculture teams are working directly with the Nicaraguan community. Team leaders and faculty travel to Nicaragua in October, months before the March ASB trip, to find out from the community what specific knowledge the Nicaraguans teachers need to gain for their professional development at the conference and what projects the school in La Ceiba needs assistance with. We listen to what the Nicaraguan people tell us they need rather than airlifting ourselves there, doing projects, and leaving. The team leaders and faculty return to Quinnipiac with this information and incorporate the needs of the Nicaraguan community into the framework of the workshops and projects for the ASB trip in March. 

For example, this year at the school in La Ceiba, one of the projects the Agriculture team will be working on is building a retaining wall to reduce the amount of water from a nearby river that floods the school during the rainy season. We hire local artisans and contractors to oversee the project. We work under their guidance during the ASB trip and after we leave, they continue to work on the projects until completion. These workers would not have the funds or supplies to complete these projects on their own without our help.